The suspense around Jasprit Bumrah‘s fitness continues as the updated squad for the ODI series against England released by the BCCI on Tuesday does not feature his name, while he was earlier expected to be available for the third match of the series.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) added mystery spinner Varun Chakaravarthy to the squad, rewarding him for the 14 wickets, including a five-wicket haul, he took in the five-match T20I series against England. It earned him the ‘Player of the Series’ award.
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Initially, when India’s ODI squad was announced last month, the BCCI chief selector Ajit Agarkar had expressed hope for Bumrah to recover in time from his back injury for the third match.
Bumrah suffered back spasms during the Sydney Test and could not bowl during Australia’s second innings.
“With Bumrah, we are waiting to hear about his fitness and when he’s likely to be available,” Agarkar had said while announcing the squad for the England white-ball series and Champions Trophy. “At the moment I don’t think he is likely to be fit for the first couple of games (ODIs vs England) at least from what we gather. We will probably hear more in the next week or so about his fitness.
“I know he was asked to offload for five weeks of bowling, which is early first week February if I’m not wrong. And we’ll probably find out a bit more around that time what exactly and with regards to what his medical condition is…It’s better it comes from the (BCCI) medical department than me trying to explain what exactly is wrong with him. But that’s the time frame that we’ve been told. And hopefully, he’s okay after that.”
However, on Tuesday, the updated ODI squad for the England series released by the BCCI did not feature Bumrah’s name.
As reported by Timesofindia.com earlier, Bumrah reached Bengaluru on February 2 and was scheduled to undergo scans and further assessment under the watchful eyes of BCCI’s medical team.
Bumrah has been named in India’s Champions Trophy squad but his participation in the eight-team tournament depends on the outcome of the scans and assessment at the National Cricket Academy.
The first ODI against England will be played in Nagpur on February 6, and the next two on February 9 and 12. The Champions Trophy is scheduled to begin on February 19.
India’s updated squad for ODI series against England: Rohit Sharma (c), Ꮪhubman Gill (vc), Yashasvi Jaiswal, Virat Kohli, Shreyas Iyer, KL Rahul (wk), Rishabh Pant (wk), Hardik Pandya, Ravindra Jadeja, Washington Sundar, Axar Patel, Kuldeep Yadav, Harshit Rana, Mohd. Shami, Arshdeep Singh, Varun Chakaravarthy